The U.S. Army presently employs a mine clearing system (USMCS) for providing a cleared path in a battlefield. The system comprises a mine clearing line charge (MICLIC), which is dispensed at the battle zone by a rocket attached to its front end and has attached to its rear end a fuze and an arresting cable, which in turn is anchored to a trailer containing the line charge and other system components. At the conclusion of the rocket trajectory, the rocket, line charge, fuze and cable are stretched out in a long line on the ground, and the fuze has been armed by the pull of the launcher cable on the arming pin so that the high explosives in the line charge can be initiated by detonators in the fuze assembly.
The current M1134 fuze employed in the MICLIC system is a single safe fuze, wherein the only safety is an arming pin, which holds the spring loaded rotor out of line. This pin is retracted when it is pulled by an arresting cable of the line charge, thereby fully arming the fuze.
The current M1134 fuze does not meet present military standards for fuze design safety criteria because it lacks safety redundancy, has no fail-safe feature and requires stored rotor spring energy to arm. In view of these safety deficiencies the current M1134 fuze is approved for use with the MICLIC only for field assembly to the line charge. Storage of the MICLIC with the fuze assembled is not permitted.